Monday, August 13, 2012

Reports of Missouri's general level of competitiveness in the presidential race are greatly exaggerated. But Survey USA's first polling foray in the Show Me state this year certainly makes Missouri appear more swingy. The only problem is that this runs counter to most of the recent -- and by recent I mean arbitrarily polling over the last couple of months -- polls that have shown the race in the former bellwether breaking toward Romney.

Only Public Policy Polling -- in a May survey -- has shown Missouri to be as close as one point between the two nominees. And that type of proximity between the two candidates in Missouri, especially after a near tie there in 2008 and with an overall swing back toward the Republican Party in the time since, probably breaks with the conventional wisdom that a tight national race does not include a tight Missouri (presidential) race.

Of course, by that same logic, North Carolina would not be close in 2012 either. Alas, it is still pre-convention August.

Polling Quick Hits:
Missouri:
The emphasis from this poll should be placed on its position within the existing pool of polls in Missouri. Obama's share in the Survey USA sample is comparable to the share the president has enjoyed -- if one can enjoy being behind -- in recent polling there, but the Romney share lags well behind the 49-51% portion of responses the former Massachusetts governor has garnered in those same recent surveys.

This happens to be the first state-level poll to be in the field during and after the newly-selected Republican vice presidential nominee was tapped. However, this poll certainly doesn't say much about the impact of the Ryan rollout. First of all, survey respondents were in no way prompted about Ryan within the poll (not that respondent have to be to show some impact). More importantly, we are likely going to need all two weeks worth of polling prior to the conventions to begin measuring the impact of Romney's selection of Ryan. We may require more data than the two weeks have to offer, but we will have the convention effects to deal with after the August 27-30 week in Tampa.

As always, don't read anything into that connection unless it is confirmed in the coming days in other polls.

As was the case with the lone Iowa poll last Friday, the Missouri survey does little to change how things looked coming into this new week. Sure, the result is that FHQ weighted average in Missouri contracts about 0.8 percent, leapfrogging the state over Tennessee in the Electoral College Spectrum. But the Show Me state is still comfortably red; one of those states that if Mitt Romney were to lose it, the Republican ticket would lose the overall race anyway. Missouri feels like a Lean Romney state in 2012 and it will take a lot of polling data to convince FHQ otherwise.

2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Romney won all the states up to and including Ohio (all Obama's toss up states plus Ohio), he would have 272 electoral votes. Romney's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Obama's number is on the left and Romney's is on the right in italics.

3 Ohio is the state where Obama crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election. That line is referred to as the victory line.

Missouri does re-enter the Watch List with the new polling data, but FHQ is less concerned with the red states appearing there than the blue ones with Toss Up next to them.

The Watch List1

State

Switch

Connecticut

from Strong Obama

to Lean Obama

Georgia

from Strong Romney

to Lean Romney

Michigan

from Lean Obama

to Toss Up Obama

Missouri

from Lean Romney

to Toss Up Romney

Nevada

from Lean Obama

to Toss Up Obama

New Hampshire

from Toss Up Obama

to Lean Obama

New Mexico

from Strong Obama

to Lean Obama

North Carolina

from Toss Up Romney

to Toss Up Obama

Ohio

from Toss Up Obama

to Lean Obama

West Virginia

from Strong Romney

to Lean Romney

Wisconsin

from Lean Obama

to Toss Up Obama

1 Weighted Average within a fraction of a point of changing categories.